Populists are not going to crash and

burn global stock markets

Meanwhile talking about populism, I thought this was kind of interesting from Europe's most traditional country on not having lower corporate taxes:

'Switzerland’s attempts to overhaul its corporate tax regime
have suffered a setback after voters decisively rejected reforms to bring the
country’s practices in line with international standards.

The government had hoped to secure approval for changes that
would keep corporate tax rates globally competitive while abolishing special
treatment for many multinational companies.

In a referendum on Sunday, however, the plan was rejected by
59.1 per cent of voters — a much larger margin of defeat than opinion polls had
suggested' (link here).

So how about global markets...well I do think it is healthy that the US dollar positioning has fallen recently...I still note the big net long though and hence I stick with my view that better global balance via a lower dollar is likely:

Yes, I still prefer equities given where bond yields/spreads are. More relative idiosyncratic value in the former...

I just don't know why more fund management companies are not more aggressively active:

'List of 80 investment companies that have potentially sold funds that charge high fees for active management but closely mimic their benchmark' (link here)

Especially as dispersion is rising as correlations fall in this nice chart cited by @Callum_Thomas:

Royal Bank of Scotland will be forced to slash up to 15,000
jobs as it scrambles to cut costs in the face of a ninth consecutive year of
losses

A secretive hedge fund backed by the financier who waged
activist campaigns against Volkswagen and Deutsche Börse is lobbying for a sale
of William Hill. Parvus is William Hill’s biggest shareholder with about 14% of
the stock, which it has built up through derivatives. The fund opposed the
gambling giant’s attempts to merge with Amaya, the Canadian owner of the
PokerStars website, last October. It said the deal would destroy shareholder
value.

Rolls-Royce is set to crash to a record loss of about £4bn
as sterling’s slump and its £671m corruption fine erase profits. The fall in
the pound since the Brexit vote will force it to write down profits by about
£3bn. The engineer struck derivatives deals to protect it from currency swings,
which have pushed it into a paper loss. Even stripping out the currency
gyrations, it will report a dire performance for 2016 on Tuesday — with profits
halving.